Tuesday, July 30, 2013

West Pier Drive-In

Remember the good old days of carhop service, and drive-in restaurants? Waiters and waitresses would run out to your car, take your order, and your food would magically appear at your window?

......... Nope? Me neither. But my parents did! And they told me about this great drive-in restaurant called West Pier Drive-In, right across the river from where we live. It's been ranked the #2 burger in Michigan, so Cait and I decided we would go see what all the hype was about.

Apparently the shop opened up in 1958, and has been owned by its current operators for the past 26 years. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't overly impressed with the exterior. But in my experiences, it's these kinds of places that have the best food, so I had a feeling something real tasty was a comin'. The menu was simple, and inexpensive, which I was into:

Almost immediately after pulling in, a friendly waitress came up and took our order.

And then, this happened:

They hook your tray of food onto your car window! Get.In.My.Belly.

We feasted. Cait ordered a hot dog and fries, with a strawberry milkshake to wash it all down.

I ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings, with a chocolate shake. Awwwww yeah baby.

The cheeseburger lived up to the hype. IT WAS HUUUGE. And delicious. A little bit messy, but definitely worth it. I would do it again. The onion rings were pretty good too. Cait liked her hot dog, but her french fries were a disappointment. They looked b-e-a-utiful, but were a little bland. Not like that really mattered to us; we were both so full, it was probably for the best that we didn't eat them. They would have had to remove us from the premises via a crane and hoist mechanism.